Infinite
by Thucydides411
Summary: "Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many."
1. Asylum

**Note: This is the reworking of a project I started long ago. Plot ideas, concepts, and actions have changed constantly, and yet for some reason this single thought has remained in my head despite everything else I've toyed with. I hope everyone enjoys this, and I always appreciate comments and criticism.**

_There is No Confusion like the Confusion of a Simple Mind_

From his window at the _William J. LePetomaine Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed_ Dr. Luther Manning quietly watched the seas as the rain battered away at his window. It was another wet November morning, the rain and the cold combining to set a thick fog across the coastline. Tired eyes supported by coffee and cigarettes strained to just barely see the distant lights of a lighthouse, that one lone sentinel keeping lost ships from running aground. He was a tall man, even with a crooked back from a fall as a child. His blonde hair was fading away, leaving only slight wisps to cover his head.

Much like his work here. His office was like a museum dedicated to his profession: books and journals lined his walls with the latest knowledge of the world; his desk held a mountain of files dedicated to his patients. Dr. Manning was renowned for his tireless work ethic, his skills in manipulating the mind, and his ability to reintegrate his patients into normal society. While there were those who argued that his efforts were … extreme the numbers continually showed himself to be one of the top exports in the nation in the regard. Judges and even the elite of New England society sent their troublesome issues to him, and Dr. Manning always ensured they returned a happy and functional member of society.

But this particular case now…

"Excuse me, doctor? The patient is ready." A nurse said, ducking her head inside his office door. With a heave and a sigh, Dr. Manning followed her out of his office down the cold corridors of the Asylum.

"He's a peculiar one, isn't he Nurse Jennings?" He asked the woman in front of him, an older woman of about forty with a large mole beside her nose and heavy build. She had always been one of Manning's chief supporters here at the Asylum. He willingness to actually proceed with his procedures didn't hurt at all either...

"I suppose so, doctor. He's been amazingly resistant to our efforts so far. I honestly think the man's convinced he's not sick. Nothing some work can't fix, but it isn't going to be easy…" She said before lighting a cigarette. Down the hallway several orderlies were wheeling a half-broken man away.

"I'm sure in due time our boy will be fine and dandy. We'll set him right on up, we just have to make him fit in first." The nurse opened the door first, allowing the doctor to enter before following him. Across the room at a small hardwood table sat another man, dressed in the white coat of the facility with his identification number stamped across his chest.

He was a younger man, probably in his late twenties but life had aged him a few years extra. His reddish-brown hair was already graying, and the lines of wrinkles were already forming on a face which stared helplessly out the window. Deep blue eyes simply stared across the fog, as if he was trying to pull himself towards the lighthouse.

"Dr. Thomson? Dr. Thomson, how are you today?" Manning asked, taking a seat across from the man. He lit a cigarette and laid the pack down upon the table. No reply came as the other still stared blankly away.

"That is your name, isn't it? Come now, there's no reason we can't behave as one professional to another. You should know better that we're here to help you Dr. Thomson. We aren't going to hurt you." The Psychiatrist probed. Again no response came, leading the man to begin jotting things down into his notes.

"You know, if you don't cooperate with us it's only going to make things more painful and difficult for yourself…" His little threat seemed to hit a nerve, as the patient actually mouthed something, hardly above a whisper as he kept his focus towards the sea.

"So he speaks! Can you speak up, doctor?" Manning asked.

"Don't call me Doctor." The patient said, more firmly this time. "I don't like to stand on ceremony. I prefer to let people decide who I am by actions, not by titles."

"Very interesting, Mr. Thomson. Or should I call you James? Nurse Jennings tells me you are quite the fascinating man. From one of the finest families of New England, a war hero, Oxford educated! A man one rarely imagines to see in a place like this, yet you claim to have "hopped between realities" and travelling to a "city on the moon." Why don't you tell us about these things" Manning watched his patient as he listed these things, the man's face slowly turning to look him directly in the eyes. It was a cold and intensive look, a stare the doctor had seen many times from those who had returned from the battlefields of France.

"Horresco referens." The patient said, suddenly producing a cigarette from the doctor's pack. Manning hadn't even noticed he'd taken it. Still, he offered the man a light and sat back, as the empty stare regained some light as a smirk.

"Cup of coffee would be nice too…" The doctor exchanged a look with Jennings beofre the nurse grunted as her fat legs lifted her up. She left the room with a the old wooden floor creaking before door the quietly closed behind her.

"So, Mr. Thomson, why don't we start from the beginning, yes? Why don't you describe to me this world you are from, yes? I'm very interested in hearing about it now." The scrape of his pen on paper seemed to echo throughout the room as the younger man turned silent again. The younger man simply stared around the room, cigarette dangling from two limp fingers as he seemed to search for the words he wanted.

"Tell me doctor, what do you associate with the word infinite?"

"I believe I'm the one giving the interview here, Mr. Thomson." Manning replied, not looking up from his papers. The patient laughed before inhaling some more of his cigarette.

"Humor me."

"It's an abstract concept for the highest of all possible numbers, then."

"Then perhaps I should start there," the patient, as he looked out again to the sea. "There are two different mindsets of just what infinity is Doctor. Aristotle explained it as a potentiality, you see. Something that exists, but one will always be able to find a number that is larger. The other, however, states that infinity simply is: every continuum that has ever existed, does exist, and will ever exist. But that there is not so many that there isn't a larger one. Unending…."

"I suppose that's fascinating, Mr. Thomson. Is this what physicists ponder in our age, or are you perhaps the kind of man more interested in the Stoa?" Manning asked as he stamped out his own cigarette.

"_Metaphysics_. That was, until the war. Because, you see doctor there's the concept of Infinity, yes. But like anything else in this world there has to be an opposite. And what would you image the opposite of infinite? Zero? Emptiness?" As he spoke Nurse Jennings returned with the requested coffee, placing two cups in between the two men. The doctor placed two cubes of sugar and some of the cream which had been provided, as the patient took his without dilution.

"I would suppose so, yes." The doctor said, scribbling yet more notes onto his pad.

"No, doctor. The opposite of infinity is totality. A limit in the scope of the unlimited. An absolute. Inevitability. The perfect machine."

"So you are suggesting some kind of predestination then?"

"The thing that hath been, it _is that_ which shall be; and that which is done _is_ that which shall be done: and _there is_ no new _thing_ under the sun." Thomson repeated, taking his cup of coffee.

"Ecclesiastes?" Nurse Jennings interrupted before silencing at a single look of Dr. Manning.

"A man of letters, the mind, faith, and the sciences … How fascinating you are. But you still have dodged what I want from you, Mr. Thomson. And I always get what I want from my patients." Manning said bluntly as Jennings smiled behind him.

"And I suppose you consider yourself to be Christ? Laying hands to cure the sick and judging those not worthy?" The patient responded. The Doctor smiled.

"No, Mr. Thomson. In this facility I am God himself."

"And then am I to confess my sins to you then, doctor?" He asked, arching an eyebrow. Manning smiled cruelly and nodded his head.

"Are you really sure you want to hear my sad little story, doctor?" He asked. The physician nodded eagerly.

"_Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi_

_in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:Σιβυλλα_

_τι θελεις; respondebat illa:αποθανειν θελω."_


	2. A Tale of Two Doctors

**Patient: Thomson, James R.**

**Date: 12 APR 1922**

**Symptoms: Schizonphrenia, Delusions, Aggressiveness, Depression, Bouts of Insanity**

**Dr. Luther Manning Presiding**

"I suppose, doctor, that I should begin my sad little story a few years before the events you wish for me to recall. You see just before he went back to England in the years before the war, my uncle provided me a bit of advice which I've remembered over the years. We went out onto the sea, just the two of us, in this little dingy on a warm and clear June morning. We were fishing, and for awhile neither of us said much on the matter until he finally spoke up. He gave me the last bits of wisdom he thought he should pass down to me: thoughts on women and marriage, of duty to family and state, and his thoughts on the nature of humanity. But the last thing he said, you see, were these exact words:

"_There isn't any man, James, who rightfully doesn't believe what he's doing isn't for the right reasons. That's the thing about the world; nobody just does something just to be evil or unjust. Do not be so quick to judge, take every man at the individual level. Humanity isn't evil, my boy, for with every evil you meet you will most certainly one day find one which equals it or a greater good to counteract it. With the right help, all will be well; I promise you that."_

So noble, isn't it? In many ways my Uncle raised me more than my father or grandfather. My father worked in the diplomatic services, and that was how he had met my mother. Both families approved of the match, and they were wedded after an incredibly brief courting. One might even say it was love at first sight. He was one of those last vestiges of the old English gentry, a living memorial of what society at least pretended to be. He had been wounded in the war down in South Africa, and holding to the bachelor's life took me on as his own son. He held certain expectations on what a man should be, what a man should do for his community, and what a man should strive for.

For a time I actually believed his words, and even as I went off to join the Canadians in the war I held to that belief as long as I could. Four years of war tends to reduce such inclinations in a man, leaving one only embittered and broken. You see, doctor, by some miracle I managed to survive those four years and walk away with only a handful of wounds. But it is not the physical ones that present the most pain, but those which afflict our very souls. You have to understand, the war, it never really lets you leave. The memories, they're always present. It was as if a part of me forever tore away, wandering about its own path while I remained as only a half man like so many other soldiers. I never felt wholeness again until after I'd met her.

She was the kind of girl who just had an aura about her, the kind which naturally attracts you to her with her smile and her mind and everything else. The kind of girl who shouldn't ever have to suffer and live the happy life she deserved. But I wronged her. Doctor, I doubt you'd be inclined to believe me but I've seen things that no other living human being has seen. I've seen the surface of the moon and distant stars; the dinosaurs and the streets of Rome; entire realities wiped from existence in the blink of an eye, and the only damnable thing in my head is all the wrong I did to her.

I stayed in Europe for some time afterward, hoping to rejoin my uncle but he sadly perished in that dreadful epidemic of '18. The estate and the money went to some nephew I barely knew who resented me, and I found myself without so much as a penny to my name. During this time I could hardly sleep and took to drink, as I wandered my way to Paris looking for some kind of work. I worked as a writer, then some work as a detective, busting skulls at strikes, and just about anything which could provide me with some source of income: some of it you could say was less than legal. Even then, I hardly had any money that wasn't dedicated to banishing the ghosts which crept in my mind at night. Life was so bitter that no drink or woman or priest seemed capable of ridding the taste away. I was alone.

It was on a chilly night maybe four years to the day after the armistice that things changed. I was in one of my usual haunts half drowned in bourbon and enthralled in the singing of several Frenchmen from the same company who had reunited by chance. The haze of the smoke and the clamor of the piano added to the delirium, and despite the pleading of the girl who was trying to make my company I decided to depart for some fresh air. I wandered down an alleyway to urinate, my mind lost in that fog and hardly able to stand when by chance I came upon a grey-haired man being beaten by several youths. My presence seemed to frighten them away, and I stumbled over to ask if the stranger was alright.

"Bless you sir," he said, in somewhat broken French while I offered him a hand. "You are my savior, and perhaps their are forgiving hearts in this city after all. I thought for sure they would beat the life from me! For a Frenchman to save a German! On this night of all nights! Bless you! Bless you!" He enthusiastically clasped my hand with both of his and began to shake it wildly.

"I am sorry to disappoint you sir, but I am not a Frenchman. I am an American." I said, not realizing I was actually speaking in the local tongue still. The little man remained quiet and only dusted off his coat after finally releasing my hand. I tried to say something in what little German I knew, but it only came out a slurred mess.

"Ah, American! Yankee! Sorry about the little incident with the ship," he said while shaking my hand again with just as equal vigor. "My name is Dr. Ernst Heinrich, physicist and inventor."

"James Thomson, doctor of Metaphysics." I replied softly.

"Metaphysics?! My, Dr. Thomson, it seems I am more fortunate than I first thought," he began, "I am actually in need of a man with your kind of inclinations right now. I've been conducting a series of experiments with things the common man could not even begin to fathom understanding of. But you sir, I do believe you may be of great value." He spoke in broken English, to confused French, and rounded it out with incomprehensible German. Half of what he explained I couldn't manage to even understand.

"I'm sorry, doctor, but I honestly don't think I am the man you are looking for..." I started, attempting to sober my mind as I stumbled backwards with hands raised. Dr. Heinrich laughed heartily as he extended a hand to catch me from falling backwards: he was stronger than he looked.

"In exchange for your help I'll gladly provide you with lodgings and payments for your expenses. And a bath, going by how _ghastly_ you smell right now. Come now, James, would you not want to possibly discover things no man has ever seen before? All you would need to do is fulfill your side of the contract, which I can assure you is quite fair." His smile was warm and strangely reassuring, and I agreed to his terms in that exact moment.

And that was how I first came to meet Dr. Ernst Heinrich, the man ultimately responsible for starting me on this fatal journey.

Ernst Heinrich was born a _Bavarian_ (as he would emphasize), the son of his town's physician and raised in a family highly embracing of the sciences. He shared his birthday with the Kaiser, and once in his younger years had actually seen the Imperial family pass in procession. He had a great fondness for the old regime, something probably driven by his anger at the revolutionaries who destroyed his old lab.

Heinrich barely tolerated disorder, you see. His lab was perfectly organized, everything listed and cataloged, with neat little markings to designate whatever each of the hundreds of containers and crates contained. Even his weekly schedules were strictly ordained, where everything from afternoon coffee to reviewing his own notations had their own time, in their own place, and for their own purpose. He was a most curious fellow and hardly spoke to me after my hiring, and the only other person I ever saw him interact was the maid Camille. For the most part, the majority of my work for him was maintaining these catalogs and providing intellectual stimulation for conversation. While he worked behind a dark curtain, I was denigrated to the status of little more than clerk. Heinrich would even send me out on the occasional errand. Whatever lay behind the black curtain remained an ever present mystery, which for some reason I feared would incite terrible wrath if I discovered it.

Still, remained true to his word and I finally had a consistent enough income for me to live comfortably.

This arrangement lasted until about April, when on a cold and cloudy Saturday morning I was awakened by a boy knocking furiously at my apartment's door. He provided a note from Dr. Heinrich, requesting my immediate presence at the lab and that it was imperative I _bring along some of those skills you no doubt had learned during the war_. I shuddered to think just what exactly would drive him to request this, but I swiftly grabbed my coat and a colt I kept handy before heading out the door.


	3. The Lab

**Note- I do apologize for the delay, but life the past few months has taken on one too many twists and turns for me to devote time to writing. That being said, however, I am presently 3 chapters ahead in writing this presently, and more are to be on the way so this project (and my others) will be continuing. As always, thank you for any reads and reviews.**

Dr. Heinrich's lab was in an old warehouse settled not too distant from the Latin quarter. From the outside the building was quite unassuming: Heinrich had even neglected to have the old sign for Matthieu's shipping and Freight. It say on a back alley away from most traffic, and the only signs of life nearby were the growing stacks of garbage tossed lazily outside. It was private, however, and that is what Dr. Heinrich desired the most of the location. His work was uninterrupted, and it wasn't like he wanted much interaction with the Parisian people anyway.

Inside the good doctor was pacing about the lab like a man waiting on the birth of his first child. The black curtain had fallen, revealing a massive machine which reached all the way to the ceiling. Two large coils fluctuated with electricity, as dozens of wires reached out to a hole leading to someplace I lacked the courage to ask.

"Ah, Dr. Thomson, good to have you here. Now if you don't mind I need to ask a great favor of you. My work is almost done now, but I'm in dire need of one other piece. There's a curiosities store nearby, _Le Nid d' Oiseau, _and there's a very specific piece I need. You'll recognize it when you see it, don't worry. There's some money in the envelope so do please hurry; I'm afraid there is some rather troubling individuals who have visited me recently, so I'll have to step our plans. Please go." Heinrich barely had time to stop as he turned his attention to the machine; he bothered little to give me any attention and simply gestured about wildly in between adjustments.

"Dr. Heinrich," I said grabbing the envelope, "'you'll recognize it' is not exactly the kind of information I would prefer to have for a search. Is there anything at all you have which can help me specify?"

"James, while I do appreciate you asking for clarification I cannot provide it. I am just as unsure of what the object looks like, only that I have been assured by the owner that the store possesses the key I need to unlock my machine. Trust me I would do this myself, but I must finish my work!" He said with a sudden panic I'd never once heard in his voice. Dr. Heinrich was a soft-spoken and confident man; to hear his voice cry out in such a manner truly concerned me. He pulled a bottle of brandy from a drawer and took a swig straight from it it, giving a harsh cough as he kept it in his left hand,

"You do not know how important it is for you to hurry today, James. Time is of the utmost essence."

"I'm rather confused why you are so afraid, doctor, if I'm just going across town…"

"Well my boy, why did you think you might need that pistol in your coat? Did I tell you to bring it? Did I say there was danger, that you needed a weapon? Why did you decide it might be necessary?" He replied. I hadn't mentioned the gun at all since my arrival and it certainly wasn't exposed.

He took the bottle again and wandered off, leaving me to marvel at the thing on my wrist. I hadn't taken my eyes off of it by the time I'd reached the alleyway outside. I found myself wandering the streets rather distracted as I tinkered with the thing. Few passer-bys paid much heed to me outside of awkward stares, and I even stopped to grab something quick to eat since I had skipped breakfast. From Dr. Heinrich's lab in the Latin Quarter to the _Le Nid d' Oiseau _one had to cross the river, turn left, and then look for it in a hole in the wall about four blocks from the Louvre. I'd past it before on a few occasions, the bronzed sign at the front of a nesting bird was certainly an eye-catcher and just below in large letters were the words BOOKS AND CURIOSITIES Mlle Morette, Proprietor. Otherwise there never seemed anything quite peculiar about the place at all. Why Heinrich was sending me here I honestly had the least semblance of a clue, but I pressed onward out of intellectual curiosity.

"I don't think it would be wise to do that." A voice from beside the river said as I neared the store. Sitting just off to my left beside the Seine were a man and a woman, peculiarly dressed the same way. They were playing a game of chess, though even at first glance I could tell they had somehow positioned themselves into a draw. The bishops and rooks had all been defeated, leaving a Knight, some pawns, and one queen in a war waged by a black and white king. Both looked tired, beaten, and their clothing was rags.

I would have dismissed them as vagrants had they not addressed me in English.

"I'm sorry," I said, stopping mid-stride. "Are you speaking to me?"

"In there, the thing you've been sent to find by Heinrich. If you bring it to him, all you will do is unleash great suffering on the one thing which does not need to suffer more." The woman said, not taking her eyes from the skies were darkening now, and a harder wind was blowing in.

"I'm not follo-"

"If the slate has been wiped clean, and the horrors which it recorded forgotten, do you endeavour to bring them back to the light of day? Or do we leave them exactly as they are, forgotten, and let general harmony continue?" The man said, moving his queen to break the stalemate.

"I suppose it depends on what exactly this horror is," I started, unsure why I even continued to the conversation. "If its exposure provides no good then there is no cause for it to be exposed other than knowledge, which is good. If its exposure provides some good then one should bring it to the light." I turned away from them without waiting for an answer, walking towards the door to the shop and placing a hand on the handle. Just before I opened the door, I heard one last play from the game.

"Knight takes queen." The woman said, as the chimes at the door rang to announce my entrance.


	4. Books and Curiosities

Inside the store my senses were immediately assaulted with the scent of old leather and polished silver. The chimes gave an echo, and somewhere about the labyrinth of goods I could hear someone moving about. which ranged from a pile of early editions of Hugo to incomprehensible pieces of Spanish Art. It was an impressive collection, certainly, and for such a small and unfamiliar store it could compare with many of the finest I'd visited.

"Just a minute!" A voice called out which I assumed was the store owner's. Fleetingly I hoped that perhaps they would have some idea of what it was exactly Dr. Heinrich wanted me to locate, but while still waiting for the shop owner I my curiosity turned to an older copy of Shakespeare's _Tempest_. Opposite the page it was turned to sat an illustration of the girl Miranda, looking out towards an endless sea.

"Bonjour, Monsieur. Are you interested in that particular piece? I have a copy in French if you would prefer; though it loses something from the original English…" A woman's voice said as I looked up from the book to see a woman about my age walking standing at the end of the counter. Her hair was dark brown and her eyes matched the blue coat she was wearing. She smiled politely before turning her attention to a small stack of books waiting to find a shelf.

"Actually I'm not looking for a book but rather some sort of curiosity. I was hoping you could help me find it." I said as she went about her work. The young woman worked with a certain passion to her work, as each book in her hands warranted further investigation before being placed carefully on its shelf. She spoke to them almost as if they were old friends, company for a lonely and contained life. When the last one was placed she stopped, rubbing her fingers gently along the spine before looking back with a smile.

"Oh of course, Mr…."

"Thomson. James Thomson."

"Cecille Morette." The store owner replied politely. "Your name - are you English?" The girl had switched to English this time, dropping her French. I replied that I wasn't but born American and she laughed, commenting how much she'd love to visit New York. I replied that I had only visited it a few times and that it was a lovely city, but that had been years ago; she looked at me and frowned with a soft "oh." For someone who had never visited in America her English certainly sounded that way: it certainly wasn't the King's.

"Now Mr. Thomas, what is it exactly that brings you into my shop today?" She turned to me with a smile while adjusting her hair. I replied that I was looking for something for Dr. Heinrich, and that he had neither provided me with no information on what exactly that something was, nor had he given any instruction as to what it looked like.

"Oh, Ernest! Yes, he visits every now and for books by, oh who was it … Lutece! Yes, . He never buys them though, perhaps that is why he's sent you? A curious thing, because I'd never actually heard of him before. Heinrich explained that he was a physicist, but I can say with certainty that he is no member I know of." Neither had I heard of the man outside of Heinrich's mentioning. He certainly wasn't known at Oxford.

Meanwhile Cecilie had taken my hands, and after a confused glance at the contraption along my arm pulled me deeper into the store, past rows of books and stranger curiosities until we had reached the very back wall of the store. She passed me a copy of the book, titled _Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel_ and published over thirty years ago.

"Yes, here it is. I honestly don't know why Ernest is interested in this. Most of it is, well, in my opinion bad science." I asked her how she gained such an interest in science and she shrugged, attributing it to her upbringing. Before I could enquire more the doorbell rang and she departed to greet the newcomers with the same eagerness as myself. I myself lifted the piece and fingered through the text. There was nothing in there that I perceived as particularly that struck my interest until I noticed a hole had been cut in the middle pages, holding a small note and a locket with a caged bird etched on the cover.

Opening the note I received a clear enough message:

_Get the girl and bring her to the lab, there's no time to waste. You are both in danger. -Ernest_

I pocketed the locket and proceeded to the front of the store anxiously with one hand kept near where i had the Colt tucked away. At the front Cecilie was talking to a tall man in a black coat and spectacles. Half his face was covered by one of those tin masks they make for those who were disfigured in the war, the paint flaked and faded now with age. Whatever the conversation was I don't know, as he raised a gloved hand when I came into view.

"Ah, there is is now. Good show, sir. I'll gladly pay more for it, mademoiselle, if he's intending on purchase. It would be of great benefit for my superior, and he'd be most inclined to continue his purchasing here if we may conduct this transaction." His tone was almost overly polite, and he spoke with an accent more fitting for Alsace-Lorraine than Paris. Cecilie started to apologize, saying that I had arrived earlier and that it was mine to purchase and that she could see about acquiring another copy if he so desired.

"No that will be fine." I said as I relaxed and shrugged my shoulders. I extended the book out to the other man and he took it with a smile. I stepped back, looking towards Cecilie as she finished the transaction, her eyes not leaving the man in black and his compatriots until they departed.

"Mr. Thomson?" Cecilie asked as her attention turned back to me. I was starting to explain what was in the book when there was a crash at one of the windows as a small metal ball skipped across the floor.

In that moment muscle memory and fear took hold of my body as I lunged forward, pushing Cecilie to the floor behind the old counter just as heat and shrapnel were tossed about the room. Blood pounded through my ears and my vision suddenly flooded with tucked away pains and misfortunes of the war. The girl was screaming, and I could hear shouting from outside along with footsteps on broken glass.

"Make sure they're dead; Salvadore will want this confirmed. Before the police arrive! _Schnell!" _

"Do you have another door? In the back? Anywhere?" I asked Cecilie as I readied the Colt in my right hand. She nodded through teary eyes saying there was one near the back. "Go, I'll keep them off you."

I stood up, catching the lead man by surprise with two rounds into his chest. His compatriot caught him, stumbling backwards and giving us a chance to move. As we darted into the rows of bookshelves there was more shouting before they started firing wildly with a sort of machine gun. Pages of books and leather bindings started flying about, as I went flat onto the floor; Cecilie made her own way out of sight.

When he reloaded I fired back, missing my mark but causing him to find cover. Thus began a quick cat-and-mouse fight between the rows, as I slowly worked my way to the back of the store. I saw Cecilie opening the back with an old key and I made my break for the door, only to be caught again by fire from our assailant. A few rounds penetrated my jacket and I barely just managed to find something solid as cover. My head started to hurt as blood pounded in my veins and all I could really hear was the war. I zoned out and covered my ears with my hands and my vision went blurry. I started to see things. Stars and lights and the smell of fire. I started breathing heavily, reaching for the Colt when a leather boot kicked it away from my hands. He looked down at me and said something while I just blindly stared back; I couldn't move and my head was in a daze as I stared up at his waiting barrel.


	5. Memory

**A/n: Before I start I'd like to thank everyone for the views, favorites, and reviews. I appreciate those greatly and they help tremendously in keeping the writing juices flowing.**

_Why didn't he just shoot?_

I can't really say. You see, for however how long I was out of it I wasn't really in the store. The mind does things, I'm sure you've seen it before, when the body gets distressed or is reminded of them. The smells and the sounds were there, and the next thing I knew I was back in some muddy trench somewhere grabbing my Brodie with arty falling all around us. I see old Corporal Beck getting turned into nothing more than a cloud of red mist and someone else is screaming out about his arms. Even the rats are trying to dig a hole to hide in. And I remember how when it was like that the only thing you could do was try and make yourself real small and hope none of those big guns had your number, and that maybe someone up there was keeping an eye out for you.

Back in the store there was a crack and the man stumbled a bit before falling face first onto the floor. The back of his head looked split open, and I blinked a few times to see Cecilie standing there with some old iron lamp.

"Are you okay?" She asked as I steadied myself back in reality and retrieved my pistol. I stumbled for a second getting up, and lit a cigarette while I leaned against the nearby shelf. I said nothing as I inhaled deeply and kept blinking. I looked at my hands wondering if my entire day was simply a vivid dream.

"It's nothing. A bit of shell-shock from the war, that's all. It never really goes away." I offered her a cigarette and she politely refused before we made our way outside, quickly moving a few blocks over as police sirens grew louder. If it was just the tin-faced man left then I assumed he had fled, but my mind was more concerned with whatever it was Heinrich had concocted for me. We stopped at an alleyway not too far from the Seine, and Cecilie said I was bleeding and produced a small cloth from one of her pockets; I'd been grazed in my upper arm. The adrenaline must have kept me from noticing.

"Do you think we're being followed?" She asked slipping into French from stress. I shrugged and said maybe before I put my cigarette out on a box in the alleyway.

_Now hold on Mr. Thomson. So you are saying these men attacked a store, in Paris, in broad daylight, to take whatever was in that book?_

_Yes._

_And why do you think they would risk something like that?_

_Are you a military man, doctor? Did you take any part in the war?_

_I did not._

_Well then certainly you have some idea of this from life. Sometimes all the pieces someone needs line up in the exact moment; it's a decisive thing. Either you claim it or it passes and you forever lose the opportunity. Caesar at the Rubicon or the Bolsheviks over in Russia. _

_It's a matter of time and place then, yes? Chance?_

_Chance has nothing to do with this._

"You were in the war?" She asked politely while tending to my shoulder.

"The whole of it. Third Battalion, first Division, Canadian Corps."

"How'd an American…"

"When the war started I skipped town and found a recruiter across the border. They didn't ask too many questions." Cecilie went quiet as she finished the dressing and sat back on a box.

"I'm so sorry… it all must have been terrible." Cecilie started, leaning against the brick beside me and covering her eyes. The wind was picking up again.

"Can't be any worse than what you probably see here miss. We had it rough but some of the French, well, I'll say I'm not jealous of them. What was the term? _grand mutiles?_" Then there were more police sirens and we agreed to keep moving. The clouds had moved in and most of the usual crowds along the Seine had thinned out. Cecilie continued to ask the occasional prodding question about my life in Paris or beforehand,

"I don't know. I hardly remember anything from the war." She said timidly, turning her eyes from me as we crossed the river. "The doctors, after I woke up, they said I'd been in a deep sleep. They said I had been in an accident and that I had to be more careful."

"Amnesia then?" I asked, helping her across a puddle as we neared the doctor's lab. Cecilie responded that it wasn't quite like that: only the years of the war were missing. She told me how she grew up in on a quiet farm outside the city with her family; her parents practiced medicine while the grandparents maintained the land. It was a happy, normal childhood. Despite a loving family and plenty of animals on her farm, she'd always dreamed of greater adventures out there.

"I know this will sound very simple James, but I think I'd like to see the moon someday. I mean, I don't see how we can't just take one of those big guns from the war and point it up there. Like in Melies! Don't you agree?" I gave her some half-hearted agreement as we rounded another corner before the last stretch to Dr. Heinrich's lab. As we approached, however, we started to hear a great commotion coming from the lab. As we came closer the voices, three of them, became louder and louder. I recognized one as Heinrich's and the other two reminded me of the vagrants from earlier.

"You have no right to do this to the girl, Ernest. We all agreed on that when we gave her this life. And now you want to open up everything to her? Do you even know if she, or anyone, can withstand the strain?" the woman said.

"Am I being lectured by you, _Rosalind_, of all people on dragging this girl into things she has no part of? I know what I am doing here and its the only way to take care of this problem." Replied Heinrich, which followed with the sounds of machines working and electricity. The streetlights seemed to flicker on the street. Cecilie looked at me nervously as I drew my colt and we stood just beside the doorway.

"I do not deny that my sister and I may have misused the girl, yes. Those were very controlled experiments, however, things could be managed and adjusted as needed," the man added. "What we are dealing with, what you are planning… we have no way of knowing what will happen."

"We?" Heinrich retorted alongside a high-pitched whir, "Your arrogance with all of this amazes me. You two represent the worst of natural science; you seek out truths only until they become yours, and then your turn them into dogma. You believe to have unlocked the secret of reality, but you've truly only scratched the surface."

"And what if she rips a hole in it all instead?" Rosalind replied. At those words Cecilie moved passed me and pulled on the large oak doors herself, stepping inside of the lab. I followed, weapon somewhat readied.

"Excuse me, Ernest, but I would appreciate an explanation for this. And if _anyone_ is going to make a decision about me at all, it's going to be myself." She demanded, as all of the eyes in the lab turned to her. I'm fairly certain the man beside Rosalind turned even more pale.


End file.
